If you listen to the left, illegal alien and suspected gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a good-natured, innocent, non-violent father and family man who was made to disappear one night by the authoritarian Trump administration that denied him basic American due process.
If you listen to the right, Garcia was a violent, proven gang member who had his day in court and was allowed to be deported.
So where’s the truth?
Let’s start with this. There is no denying that Garcia is in the United States illegally. That alone provides the federal government with the authority to deport him. It is irrelevant whether he is a member of a gang or has committed any crimes beyond the crime of crossing the border illegally.
But it’s not as though Garcia was just walking on the street and suddenly was dragged onto a bus and taken away without any due process. He had a number of court hearings back in 2019. Two courts agreed with the government’s contention that he was a member of the MS-13 gang and authorized his deportation.
Immigration Judge Elizabeth Kessler wrote the following in 2019 (her decision was upheld by another judge in an appeals hearing):
“Although the Court is reluctant to give evidentiary weight to the Respondent’s clothing as an indication of gang affiliation, the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of information’ verified the Respondent’s gang membership, rank, and gang name is sufficient to support that the Respondent is a gang member, and the Respondent has failed to present evidence to rebut that assertion.”
The complication ensued because that court said the government can deport him anywhere, except for El Salvador. So what did the Trump administration do? They mistakenly sent him to the one country that the court said he could not be returned to.
Someone would say that the easy fix is to get Garcia out of El Salvador and simply deport him elsewhere. But Trump is digging in his heels because he doesn’t want to show weakness to those wanting to come into the country and because he actually likes this debate stewing as the Democrats are looking like fools jumping through hoops to advocate for violent gang members to not only stay in this country, but to be brought back once deported.
So, how do we know he’s a gang member?
First, it must be noted that he was apprehended with three other individuals, at least one who was a known MS-13 gang member, while sitting in a parking lot with wads of cash, marijuana, and a T-shirt that signaled MS-13 affiliation. And that’s not all. Government informants tagged Garcia as a known MS-13 member, who even had his own nickname within the organization. Then we find out upon greater scrutiny that he has tattoos on his fingers, cryptically spelling out code for MS-13.
Let’s not forget that his wife called in two complaints against him for domestic assault, even though proving those allegations were not necessary to allow for his deportation.
So when the left says that Garcia was denied due process, and the Trump administration will now potentially be deporting any citizen. It is totally disingenuous and completely dishonest.
First off, illegal aliens do not have the same protections that citizens do. Any individual regardless of documented status has a right to full due process if they are charged with a crime that might have them incarcerated in an American prison. That same level of due process is not necessary to simply deport someone here illegally. They may claim asylum, which would allow them to have a quick review as to whether the claim is credible. But Garcia already did have a hearing claiming that he would be in jeopardy if he would be deported back to El Salvador.
This is most ironic because the left has been claiming that he’s not a gang member, yet when he objected to being sent back to El Salvador, he pleaded with the court not to because gang members would put his life in jeopardy. Why would that be, unless he himself was affiliated with gangs?
So let’s be clear. Garcia had his days in court. These courts ruled he was likely a member of MS-13, even though that did not matter. The feds received approval from the court to deport him, just not to El Salvador. (Even though that was a lame, unsupportable holding, it nevertheless must be abided by,)
The answer here is for Trump to stop making Garcia the poster child for the left’s craziness on illegal immigration and simply deport him to a different country.
But let’s make no mistake here. The far left is purposefully gumming up the works on each and every potential deportation of the 10 to 20 million illegal aliens that were allowed to enter our country under the Biden administration. Biden had no problem ignoring the law and allowing all these people in over just a couple of years, but now the left is saying that it will take new administrations decades to try to deport even the worst of these individuals.
That is a case of national suicide.
We need a quicker way to get those here legally out of the country. If you don’t have a Social Security number, a green card, or one of a few other legal documents to allow you to stay here, your due process should be having a short period of time to produce those documents or the face immediate deportation.